Consolidation in the PR field continues apace as big firms keep buying smaller ones. Among the purchases in the last two weeks: J. Walter Thompson (owned by WPP Group) acquires
Imagio Technology Advertising and PR, a 90-person agency in Seattle with billings of $75 million. Hill and Knowlton, also part of WPP, buys SocketPR, a 45-person tech shop with
offices in Atlanta and Austin. Meanwhile, Golin/Harris snags Creative Event Marketing, an independent corporate events producer, and merges it with CrossMedia Golin/Harris, to
create CrossMedia CEM.
But wait, there's more. McCann-Erickson WorldGroup, part of Interpublic Group, swallows St. Louis-based The Waylon Company, Inc., an independent sales promotion firm with 1999
billings of $110 million, in order to merge it into the St. Louis operations of Momentum Worldwide, also a McCann-Erickson company.
And on the Canadian front, PR firm Torchia Communications (which used to be the Houston Group) buys the marketing PR, sponsorship and special events portfolios of Edelman
Canada, and opens offices in Montreal and Toronto for its 35 employees.
(Ralph Fascitelli, Imagio/JWT, 206/625-0252; Ed Belkin, H&K, 202/944-1978; Rick Murray, G/H, 312/729-4000; Mark Shapiro, Momentum, 314/721-4100; Jean-Claude Torchia,
Torchia Communications, 514/288-8290)